Introduction and Annotations by Bill McKibben

In honor of the bicentennial of Henry David Thoreau’s birth, this edition of Walden features an introduction and annotations by renowned environmentalist Bill McKibben

“We need to understand that when Thoreau sat in the dooryard of his cabin ‘from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house,’ he was offering counsel and example exactly suited for our perilous moment in time.”—Bill McKibben, from the introduction

First published in 1854, Henry David Thoreau’s groundbreaking book has influenced generations of readers and continues to inspire and inform anyone with an open mind, a love of nature, and a longing for simplicity and contemplation. Bill McKibben provides a newly revised introduction and helpful annotations that place Thoreau firmly in his role as cultural and spiritual seer. This beautiful edition of Walden, published in honor of the bicentennial of Thoreau’s birth, is more accessible and relevant than ever in an age of technological change and ecological crisis.

“Walden—republished by Beacon Press this year with an inspired introduction by Bill McKibben about Thoreau’s relevance to our own spiritually impoverished reality—is arguably the most important work of literary nonfiction in the American canon.”—The New York Review of Books

“Bill McKibben gives us Thoreau’s Walden as the gospel of the present moment.”—Robert D. Richardson Jr., author of Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind